This year the show was so much better than in the past! There were more tables, more stuff, many more model contest entries, and some outstanding layout setups. Last year I had just been laid off, so most of what I did involved dreaming, but this year for one brief hour I scurried all over drooling and conniving for what to do, see, purchase, etc!
I ran into several old friends from Bryan/College Station as well. It was fun to hang out and see everything. If you are ever near Houston, go to this show! Even at its worst, it has always been at least entertaining.
Anyways, I picked up some neat items. First, is this steam engine!
She is a Bachmann Spectrum 4-8-2 Mountain lettered for the SP. The best part is I got her for about $90. She has some very nice detail and can probably pull teeth she is so heavy. I broke her down, cleaned and lubed her, and put in a spare DCC chip and boom! Now I have an excursion/special locomotive for the SRR. However, the DCC install requires you snip some capacitors to make it run smoothly. See this link to the TCS DCC Install page for instructions. Soon, I will add their WOWSound decoder to finish it off with some replacement details!
Also, I found this DVD. It is Part One of the Valley Eagle trip taken by UP 844 back in 2010. This video is really cool because it covers the first time I ever really chased a train. In fact, I show up in it a few times (actually my old Chevy Blazer shows up more than I do...). I had a simple point and shoot camera, some storage boxes as a tripod, and little experience. It turned into a 6 hour affair spanning nearly 100 miles. The results? Some really nice pictures, new friends, and tons of fun that I look forward to doing over and over. Especially now that I have a better vehicle, camera, camera equipment, etc...
And now the random picture of the day!
That's a lotta hot sauce!
Anyways, until next time!
